Wednesday, August 9, 2017

HOBBLING HUBRIS

HOBBLING HUBRIS Hubris is a scourge, a disease, that combines excess self-pride and contempt into a volatile compound. I prefer humility to hubris and I am usually successful in hobbling all hubris. But, sometimes hubris rears up: eyes flashing , hooves slashing. Hubris occurred most recently, when I was reading POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME (America 's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing) by Joy DeGruy Leary, Ph.D. (2005). I had objected at one point to its "over generalizing," as she describes black students "acting out" when they "feel disrespected" by a teacher; as do adults with work place "tensions " and "rifts." My over generalizing notation was due to her lack of differentiations. (P.28) Earlier, I had pepsis with her phrase "I believe" --rather than "I prove "--utterance, relative to "behaviors in the scenarios described above...[that] are in large part related to trans-generational adaptations associated with the past traumas of slavery and on-going oppression. I have termed this condition 'Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome or PTSS.' " (p.13) Belief is baneful; the bottom of the bucket. Proof is magisterial, the top, being demonstrative. Anyone may believe. Few can prove. So ugly hubris reared up. Is she not a doctor? Do not doctors prove? The dichotomy in proof and belief is one which I have battled long from childhood into early elder-hood. But, I kept on reading, being pulled irresistibly inward towards content! I am glad that I did, for she cites a work by Dr. Molefe Asante, which I have not read: AFRICAN CULTURE: THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY; and one by Dr. John Mbiti, which I have read : AFRICAN RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHY. Her rigorously relying on these salient authorities go far to establish her thesis of "relationship" primacy in African American history and culture; thus reading-on has banished my hubris! I will read on!